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Organizing - March 2016

After passage of legislation in Minnesota allowing state-sponsored childcare providers to seek union representation, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 5 lost its bid, by a 1,014 to 392 vote, to unionize Minnesota childcare workers.

The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 509 filed a petition seeking to represent about 275 adjunct and salaried faculty members at Boston University. The local already represents about 3,500 educators in the Boston metro area. The filing is part of SEIU’s national “Faculty Forward” representation campaign.

Graduate teaching and research assistants at Yale University who have been pressuring the school to recognize and bargain with a graduate employee union have affiliated as a UNITE HERE local.

Nearly a year after withdrawing a request for the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB or Board) to conduct a representation election, the International Association of Machinists (IAM) is renewing its bid to organize at least 3,000 workers at the Boeing Co. jet assembly plant in South Carolina. The union is encouraging Boeing workers to sign authorization cards using electronic signatures.

The Communications Workers of America (CWA) withdrew its petition for an NLRB representation election days before ski instructors at Beaver Creek Resort in Avon, Colo. were scheduled to vote on representation. The CWA District 7 office in Greenwood Village, Colo. submitted a petition for a secret ballot election to represent 288 full-time ski instructors at the resort. However, the union cancelled the election after the NLRB Region 27 Acting Director sided with the employer on its challenge to the proposed size of the bargaining unit, determining that it was appropriate to include an additional 472 part-time instructors in the unit.

The NLRB certified the results of a September 2015 representation election among technical and service workers at Children’s Hospital and Research Center in Oakland, Calif., as a win for the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW), dismissing objections filed by the SEIU, which had petitioned for the vote. NUHW just edged out SEIU, with 153 votes to 145 for SEIU. The NUHW has represented the workers since 2012, and the election represents the latest chapter in a long-running rivalry between the two unions.

According to NLRB data, the Board conducted about 10 percent more representation elections in 2015 than in 2014. However, despite conducting approximately 150 more elections in 2015, the union win rate held steady at 69 percent. The International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT or Teamsters) and the SEIU were the two unions participating in and winning the most elections in 2015.

According to Bloomberg BNA reported data, overall union membership in the AFL-CIO lost 65,000 members over the past year.

Compare jurisdictions: Employment & Labor: North America

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